B-Benders Rock!

[Ed Driscoll]

B-Benders Rock!

That is all.

[Butch Snyder]

Here's mine...




:bigal :nelson

[Bongolation]

I love mine, but at about fifteen pounds it's just too heavy and unwieldy to play very much.

[Ed Driscoll]

15 pounds? Is this a Tele, or did you go the Jimmy Page route and hack up a Les Paul for your B-Bender?

Ed

[Bongolation]

Nah, mine's a 100% factory MIA Nashville three-tone sunburst alder with maple fingerboard. Actually, I think it's fourteen pounds something according to my handy office fish scale.

Brutally dang heavy, though.

It was sold by GC as a 011 series, but I think it's an 010 series, if there's any difference other than the fingerboard edges.

Here's the strap I made for it out of GI load-bearing webgear. The pad is 5" wide and almost an inch thick.

[burst_king]

Looks like a nice and tough strap.

BTW, did Fender ever make a GBE bender? I think it would be cool to get an interesting chordal effect.

[59 Strat]

Fender has never made anything (production) more than a B-Bender, but Parsons-White and Glaser make a B/G-Bender. The strap pulls the B and a belt attachment pulls the G (or vice-versa, depending on how you want it). My "American Hot-Rod Tele B-Bender" is 10 lbs., but even that is too heavy for me. I've found that I can do 99% of the licks w/o the Bender, once I've learned them with it. Jimmy Olander (Diamond Rio) is THE monster Tele Bender.

[DHM]

Ive played a Fender B-bender pretty much excusively for live gigs for the last 3 years...I have the AM Std version...weight doesnt seem to ge a big deal...with a good strap...and properly balanced its no worse than any other guitar Ive played...I have a super light nonbender tele as a reserve and actually I like the weight of my bbender ...you might want to adjust the bender spring too...see the technical info on the stringbender page.....

Clarence White ...the "original" Monster tele bender...

The original bender guitar---now owned by Marty Stuart was set up to bend any or all of the top 4 strings...it used pedal steel parts for the mechanism...after some experimentation, Clarence and Gene Parsons decided that the B string bend was the most useable...altho Marty Stuart has since added an E string bender to the guitar...

[Ed Driscoll]

59 Strat,

Originally posted by 59 Strat
Fender has never made anything (production) more than a B-Bender, but Parsons-White and Glaser make a B/G-Bender. The strap pulls the B and a belt attachment pulls the G (or vice-versa, depending on how you want it). My "American Hot-Rod Tele B-Bender" is 10 lbs., but even that is too heavy for me. I've found that I can do 99% of the licks w/o the Bender, once I've learned them with it. Jimmy Olander (Diamond Rio) is THE monster Tele Bender.

The B-G bender with the belt attachment sounds a little too Rube Goldberg for me. The B-string bender is a fairly elegant piece of engineering, having to essientially clip the guitar to my belt isn't. On the other hand, I'm essientially a rock guitarist, who was inspired to experiment with a B-Bender largely because Jimmy Page plays one. If I were a serious chicken-pickin' country player, then I might think very differently about the B-G mechanism(s).

Ed

[Bongolation]

I haven't messsed with mine much. It was clearanced for $599 at GC and curiosity got the best of me.

The device does work amazingly well, even staying in tune, which seems like an outright miracle to me.

I'm still trying to decide how to incorporate this thing into my musical style. I do a lot of chord/lead work and have put the B-Bender into an intro progression on one original song, but nothing fancy so far.

One thing it sure does, and that's replace a Stratocaster by using the 2 & 4 pickup switch positions.

[59 Strat]

I opened for Marty Stuart a while back and he was BEYOND generous in letting me take pics and play "Clarence" and his other guitars (nicest guy you'll ever meet!). That original B-bender Tele had another 1/2 of a body attached with wood screws because the mechanism was so thick. (BTW-- Clarence White was the original monster bender player because he INVENTED the thing.) Marty also had an early '50s Esquire that he got from Clarence's widow and a Martin D-28 that Lester Flatt gave him; a lot of guitar history in that cat's arsenal. I should probably scan those pics and post them or something.

[Burn Barrel]

I had an LP Special with a B Bender. It was pretty crushing. Clarence was an incredible player, no doubt.

[Teleologist]

Howdy,

I have to agree about Marty's generosity. I asked him a question about the Clarence Tele at a soundcheck once and ended up in his dressing room playing it!

My own 'bender' is a butterscotch/blackguard Custom Shop 50s Tele with a 10/56 maple neck(copied from the Clarence guitar), a Duncan '59 neck PUP(zebra so the black coil blends with the guard), a Duncan vintage stack bridge PUP, and a Joe Glaser Vintage Bridge B-Bender. The vintage version retains the stock brass E/A and D/G saddles and the ashtray type bridge(Brad Paisley's G-Bender is similar).

I didn't notice any increase in weight or change in the tone after the Glaser was installed. Tuning is very stable and because of how it works there's no drag or wear across the bridge saddle.

Keep on Twangin'